


let me check my chest, my breath right quick (he ain't ever seen it in a dress like this)

by lesbianmcqueen



Category: Bartimaeus - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Other, bartimaeus uses she/her, nonbinary bartimaeus, that's my emotional support djinni who's trying to navigate human conceptions of gender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:48:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27556342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianmcqueen/pseuds/lesbianmcqueen
Summary: “You’re always staring at pretty girls. You always have.”Nathaniel raises an eyebrow. “You’re one to talk.”
Relationships: Bartimaeus/Nathaniel (Bartimaeus)
Kudos: 16





	let me check my chest, my breath right quick (he ain't ever seen it in a dress like this)

The woman is slender, brown-skinned, ideally proportioned almost to the point of absurdity. Her black hair is long enough to be draped over her waist as she lies on her side, facing the door. In this particular pose, wearing this particular lingerie, she looks more like a still life in a fashion magazine than a person—and is very pleased with herself about it.

Nathaniel doesn’t spare her a second glance when he walks in. He’s too busy shedding his jacket, undoing his tie, unbuttoning the first few buttons of his starched white shirt to reveal the hollow of his throat. The girl watches him desperately from beneath long, dark lashes.

Nathaniel returns from hanging his jacket in the closet and gives a start when he finally sees her.

Then he laughs.

It’s been years and Bartimaeus still isn’t used to that sound. “What?” she asks, trying to sound offended and failing because she’s so distracted by the way Nathaniel's eyes are crinkling at the corners.

Nat seats himself at the edge of the bed, right where the girl is resting her weight on one slender arm. She has to crane her neck to keep an eye on him.

“You can change back, Bartimaeus, I don’t need…” Nat motions across the woman’s body. “Whoever this is. You’ve already seduced me, you don't have to do it again.”

“Oh,” says Bartimaeus, manifesting a blue silk shift and matching robe, wrapping the fabric protectively around her curves as she sits up. “You don’t like it?”

“Well—it’s not that—”

“Hah.”

“—but I don’t _prefer_ it, necessarily… if that’s what you were thinking.”

Bartimaeus frowns. “You’re always staring at pretty girls. You always have.”

Nathaniel raises an eyebrow. “You’re one to talk.”

Bartimaeus snorts, but her gaze dips from Nathaniel's for just a second. “I know you like my other forms, I just thought you might… really like this one.”

“Bartimaeus, if it were socially acceptable to stare at pretty boys, I’d have been doing that too.”

“Socially accepta—whatever you were doing around Jane Farrar was not socially acceptable, just FYI.”

Nathaniel cringes. “All right, all right, point taken… but seriously, Bartimaeus, you’re—well, you’re beautiful, you always have been, you know that. You actively aim for that, no matter the guise… I don’t care what you look like as long as you’re you. And I know you’re more comfortable in your male forms.”

“Wellllll,” says Bartimaeus. She’s avoiding Nathaniel's gaze again, more pointedly this time. “Now that’s not strictly true.”

Even Nat, quick as he is, doesn’t have time hide his surprise. “It’s not?”

“Well, I—” Bartimaeus squirms a little. “Usually I am. I’ve got that boyish charm, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

Bart narrows her eyes. “Now you watch your tone. Anyway… I don’t—well, yes, human women are pretty to look at. Sometimes. More often than the men, at least, no offense.”

“None taken,” says Nat solemnly.

“But sometimes…” Bartimaeus glances down at herself, at the corner of her robe as she rubs the silk between her fingers. “Sometimes I want to do more than just look.”

“So…” says Nathaniel slowly. “It’s for your sake, not mine.”

Bartimaeus gives a huff. “You think I’d put in all this work for _you?”_

Nathaniel stares at the fabric Bartimaeus is worrying between her fingers, flushing as he glimpses the dark expanse of thigh beneath. “And you really want me to touch you?” he asks quietly, his supressed arousal finally fluttering to the surface. “Like this?”

Bartimaeus’s eyes, when Nathaniel raises his gaze to meet them, are even darker than usual. “Sweet boy,” she murmurs, wrapping a slender arm around Nathaniel’s shoulder, “You can do more than just touch me.”

Nathaniel’s breath catches. “Oh?”

“Oh,” Bartimaeus echoes, the word warm against Nathaniel’s ear, sending a shiver down his spine even before the beautiful girl bites down and sends him falling, with a gasp, onto the bed.

**Author's Note:**

> i am a nonbinary bartimaeus supremacist. also i cant wait to look back at this fic in my archive in 3 years and say 'is that a doja cat lyric?'


End file.
